Obama, Romney React to Latest US Jobs Figures

 Obama, Romney React to Latest US Jobs Figures

WHITE HOUSE — President Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail after accepting the Democratic Party nomination¹.  Obama, and his Republican challenger Mitt² Romney, are focusing on battleground states likely to determine the outcome of the November 6 presidential election. 

With his wife Michelle, Vice³ President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, Obama began a three-day campaign swing starting in the northeastern state of New Hampshire.  The trip will take him back to Iowa in the Midwest, and the critically-important state of Florida in the southeastern United States.

Obama hopes to sustain enthusiasm and momentum⁴ from the Democratic National Convention for as long as possible, as he makes the case for voters to re-elect him and not choose Republican nominee⁵ Mitt Romney in November.

The momentum was blunted somewhat by the latest government figures showing only 96,000 jobs added to the economy in August.  Overall unemployment declined to 8.1 percent, largely due to 368,000 people stopping their search for work.  

A drop in the overall rate is a good thing for Obama.  But it also provides ammunition⁶ for Mitt Romney and Republican leaders in Congress to renew assertions that Obama's policies have failed.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, President Obama put a positive spin on the jobs numbers but said he knows more work is ahead.

"Today we learned that after losing around 800,000 jobs a month when I took office, business once again added jobs for the 30th month in a row, a total of more than 4.6 million jobs.  But that's not good enough.  We know it's not good enough, we need to create more jobs faster, we need to fill the hole left by this recession faster, we need to come out of this crisis stronger than when we went in," said President Obama.

In Orange City, Iowa, Romney called President Obama's convention speech "disappointing" and said the latest monthly jobs figure demonstrate the failure of Obama's policies.

"Ninety-five-thousand I believe net new jobs created and almost 400,000 people dropped out of the workforce⁷ altogether.  It's just simply unimaginable.  The president said that by this time we would be at 5.4 percent unemployment, 5.4 percent.  Instead we're at about 8 percent.  And you know the difference that makes in how many people would be working in America?  Nine million people.  Had he been able to keep his promise," said Romney.

White House and Obama campaign officials sounded cautious notes about any potential positive "bump" for the president in opinion polls following the Democratic convention, and strong speeches by former president Bill Clinton and others.

Obama campaign official Jen Psaki said Obama believes he did what he needed to do to remind Americans of the challenges the country faced and tough decisions Obama made, and lay out a path forward.

In his convention speech, Obama said he is "eager" to reach an agreement with Republicans in Congress on debt and deficit⁸ problems.  But he rejected Republican proposals for tax breaks favoring the wealthy to bring down the deficit.

Press secretary Jay Carney urged Republicans to work with Obama for a compromise on a balanced and fair fiscal⁹ solution to avoid a $109 billion automatic budget cut at the end of year, known as "sequestration."

The cuts are required under a deficit reduction agreement reached in 2011 that provides for $1.2 trillion in reductions over the next decade.

The White House has delayed by a week a report detailing how mandatory¹⁰ reductions would impact government agencies and programs.

Next week,  Obama returns to two other key swing states - Nevada and Colorado.  Obama campaign officials say former president Clinton will also travel in support of the Obama re-election effort, going to Ohio and Florida.

1 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

2 mitt   

n.棒球手套，拳击手套，无指手套；vt.铐住，握手

参考例句：

• I gave him a baseball mitt for his birthday.为祝贺他的生日，我送给他一只棒球手套。
• Tom squeezed a mitt and a glove into the bag.汤姆把棒球手套和手套都塞进袋子里。

3 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

4 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

5 nominee   

n.被提名者；被任命者；被推荐者

参考例句：

• His nominee for vice president was elected only after a second ballot.他提名的副总统在两轮投票后才当选。
• Mr.Francisco is standing as the official nominee for the post of District Secretary.弗朗西斯科先生是行政书记职位的正式提名人。

6 ammunition   

n.军火，弹药

参考例句：

• A few of the jeeps had run out of ammunition.几辆吉普车上的弹药已经用光了。
• They have expended all their ammunition.他们把弹药用光。

7 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

8 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

9 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

10 mandatory   

adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者

参考例句：

• It's mandatory to pay taxes.缴税是义务性的。
• There is no mandatory paid annual leave in the U.S.美国没有强制带薪年假。